NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ___________ No. 18-1971 ___________ NICHOLAS ANTHONY CROOKS, Petitioner v. ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ____________________________________ On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Agency No. A209-307-971) Immigration Judge: Honorable Kuyomars Q. Golparvar ____________________________________ Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) October 24, 2018 Before: MCKEE, COWEN and ROTH, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: November 1, 2019) ___________ OPINION * ___________ * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. PER CURIAM Nicholas Crooks, a citizen of Jamaica, petitions pro se for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) final order of removal. For the reasons that follow, we will dismiss the petition in part and deny it in part. I. Because we write primarily for the parties, who are familiar with the background of this case, we discuss that background only briefly. Crooks entered the United States on a visitor’s visa in 2005 and has remained here since that time. In 2016, he pleaded guilty in the Magisterial District Court for Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, to possessing a controlled substance in violation of 35 Pa. Stat. § 780-113(a)(16). The Department of Homeland Security subsequently charged him with being removable for having overstayed his visa, see 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(B), and for having been convicted of a controlled substance offense, see 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(B)(i). Crooks conceded his removability under the first charge, and the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) sustained the second charge over Crooks’s objection. Crooks then sought relief from removal, applying for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). He claimed that, if he returned to Jamaica, he would be harmed based on the fact that certain family members had been involved with Jamaica’s People’s National Party. 1 1 Crooks, who was 17 years old when he left Jamaica for the United States, did not allege that he himself had been threatened or harmed in Jamaica. 2 After holding a merits hearing, the IJ denied Crooks’s application and ordered his removal to Jamaica. In doing so, the IJ concluded that Crooks’s asylum claim was time- barred, and that his claims for withholding of removal and CAT relief lacked merit. Crooks then appealed to the BIA, which dismissed the appeal in April 2018. This petition for review followed. II. We have jurisdiction to review a final order of removal pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1), but the scope of our review in this case is limited for two reasons. First, to the extent that Crooks’s briefing raises arguments concerning his claims for asylum and withholding of removal, we lack jurisdiction to review those arguments because he did not exhaust them before the BIA. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(d)(1); Castro v. Att’y Gen., 671 F.3d 356, 365 (3d Cir. 2012). Second, because Crooks was found to be removable for having been convicted of a controlled substance offense, we may ...
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